Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
The Greater United States. The map we commonly see of the US nowadays excludes a lot of it.
What are you reading in 2025?
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Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Yeah, it's a lot. If you have any lingering fondness for late 19th century and early 20th century presidents, kiss that good-bye when you start reading this book.
The Bright Sword is not just the best book I read in 2024, it might be the best book I've read since Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
I'm starting up the third book in a trilogy, The Rebirths of Tao, by Wesley Chu. It's about two races of enemy aliens that inhabit human bodies, and this one deals with the son of the main character of the two previous books, with the "good" alien who inhabited the original main character now inhabiting his son. There was a time jump between books two and three, because the little son is now an adult.
I enjoyed the first two novels so much I asked for the third as a Christmas gift, and my own sons delivered.
Johnathan
I enjoyed the first two novels so much I asked for the third as a Christmas gift, and my own sons delivered.
Johnathan
I started Deadhouse Gates and am loving it. I’m also finding myself more rattled than expected by the current round of Neil Gaiman news and needing to weave in some comfort-food reading. Frederick Pohl’s Gateway at the moment, maybe some 40k fic after that.
@Whizbang Dustyboots : Wow. Way to sell the new Grossman. Into the queue it goes.
@Whizbang Dustyboots : Wow. Way to sell the new Grossman. Into the queue it goes.
overgeeked
Open-World Sandbox
Absolutely love the Gateway books. Great stuff. I should do a re-read.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
I would love to hear what you think about it. I really liked the Magicians novels (much more than the pretty-but-dumb TV show), but was nervous about reading the doorstopper of the Bright Sword novel. I ended up blasting through it, constantly delighted by it.
Finished burrowing through Gateway. As with almost everything I’ve read by Frederick Pohl, it was once again a great pleasure, with a fascinating situation, humor that’s funny, and drama that’s dramatic.
For those who don’t know: the future is not so good. 25 billion people live on Earth, eating mostly stuff made out of or grown on oil pressed from shale and such. Our narrator, Robinette Broadhead is one such guy, until the day he buys a lottery ticket and goes to Gateway. There are settlements on Venus, and they found half-million-year-old tunnels made by unknown aliens, who left nothing but a few random artifacts…and one small ship that took its occupant to an asteroid orbiting 90 degrees off the ecliptic, also tunneled by the aliens, and with hundreds of the same kinds of ships. That asteroid is Gateway.
This is the thing about the ships: they can be set to go all kinds of places. But we don’t know how to read their coordinates. So their crews (1, 3, or 5 people, depending on their size) dial in a set of options, push the launch button, and then wait. If the ship turns around to decelerate in time, they won’t die of starvation, and get to live and return. If it comes out some place that isn’t inside a star or the middle of a supernova shockwave or something, they get to live and explore a little before returning. If they find something valuable, they could get overwhelmingly rich. Or they could find nothing exploitable and get nothing. And, course, they could return dead or never return. Hell of a way to make a living, but beats the food mines, for people like Rob.
We learn at the outset that he struck it rich somehow while on Gateway. Chapters alternate between his life on Earth later and his time struggling on Gateway. Gradually we find out what made him both super-rich and consumed by grief and self-loathing, and at the end, his life changes for the better.
This is a mighty fine novel. It’s a mighty fine novel from 1977, which means that there are things we’ve collectively learned about sexuality and psychology since then. There’s nothing that sent me screaming from the book, unlike too many books newer than this one, but Rob needs more getting his head on straight than Pohl knew at the time. Fair warning to new readers and all.
I first read this when it came out, and a time or two since then. Enjoyed it each time. Did so all over again. Tempting to play out something like it with Starforged - it’s very gamable with the right sort of system. And the story is sharp, with Pohl’s beautifully clear prose, solid dialogue, and characterizations much deeper than they seem at first.
For those who don’t know: the future is not so good. 25 billion people live on Earth, eating mostly stuff made out of or grown on oil pressed from shale and such. Our narrator, Robinette Broadhead is one such guy, until the day he buys a lottery ticket and goes to Gateway. There are settlements on Venus, and they found half-million-year-old tunnels made by unknown aliens, who left nothing but a few random artifacts…and one small ship that took its occupant to an asteroid orbiting 90 degrees off the ecliptic, also tunneled by the aliens, and with hundreds of the same kinds of ships. That asteroid is Gateway.
This is the thing about the ships: they can be set to go all kinds of places. But we don’t know how to read their coordinates. So their crews (1, 3, or 5 people, depending on their size) dial in a set of options, push the launch button, and then wait. If the ship turns around to decelerate in time, they won’t die of starvation, and get to live and return. If it comes out some place that isn’t inside a star or the middle of a supernova shockwave or something, they get to live and explore a little before returning. If they find something valuable, they could get overwhelmingly rich. Or they could find nothing exploitable and get nothing. And, course, they could return dead or never return. Hell of a way to make a living, but beats the food mines, for people like Rob.
We learn at the outset that he struck it rich somehow while on Gateway. Chapters alternate between his life on Earth later and his time struggling on Gateway. Gradually we find out what made him both super-rich and consumed by grief and self-loathing, and at the end, his life changes for the better.
This is a mighty fine novel. It’s a mighty fine novel from 1977, which means that there are things we’ve collectively learned about sexuality and psychology since then. There’s nothing that sent me screaming from the book, unlike too many books newer than this one, but Rob needs more getting his head on straight than Pohl knew at the time. Fair warning to new readers and all.
I first read this when it came out, and a time or two since then. Enjoyed it each time. Did so all over again. Tempting to play out something like it with Starforged - it’s very gamable with the right sort of system. And the story is sharp, with Pohl’s beautifully clear prose, solid dialogue, and characterizations much deeper than they seem at first.
I’m sorry to say that I bounced reasonably firmly off The Magicians. I guess my gold standard for magical school/university stories is Naomi Novik’s Scholomance books, which are excellent.
Speaking of which, I’ve just finished In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan (her again) which I actually prefer to Long Live Evil. It’s a somewhat episodic novel about a teenager from our world going to magic school (more like adventurer school) in a fantasy world and it’s relatable, realistic (I don’t think I’ve ever read more convincing teenagers) and chock full of good life advice, which puts it several dozen notches above many other similar books.
Speaking of which, I’ve just finished In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan (her again) which I actually prefer to Long Live Evil. It’s a somewhat episodic novel about a teenager from our world going to magic school (more like adventurer school) in a fantasy world and it’s relatable, realistic (I don’t think I’ve ever read more convincing teenagers) and chock full of good life advice, which puts it several dozen notches above many other similar books.
Old Fezziwig
hell yes bro
I found the big initial change (magical grad school rather than magical college) to be a rough change. The characters do some awful stuff to each other throughout the novels, and making them older made some of their choices harder to forgive watching the tv show. It made them seem careless rather than callow.
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